-Radiant-

  I was in the autonav with Minex and Yesemio, going towards the floating part of the city on a 7 lane highway. There were toll gates near the border of the ‘center city’ as it was called, and all cars driving into the center city either had to go off of the highway to pay at the toll booths, or they would be flagged by automatic surveillance and would be tracked down and forced to pay a fine. Of course autonavs were run by the government so using one already included in the cost of the toll. So traffic down the wide highway was smooth sailing despite the regulations; a sign of good planning and logistics.

  I turned my gaze left and right watching all of the different cars and other vehicles driving on the highway. It was always a sight to see, all of the different ways people decorated and modified their vehicles; being in a city where automatic transportation was both cheap and easy, all of the vehicles were mostly status symbols used to show off and display to others. So the vehicles driving between the autonavs ranged from sleek and futuristic, to impractical and absurd. I even saw a car covered in a bunch of different kinds of plants right next to a sleek silver race car-like vehicle.

  Such a sight wasn’t unique to Tri-Heart City, and was a sight for my civilization deprived eyes. I finally felt that I had returned to a place filled with freedom and people, and I tried to not let the future message dull my feelings of the present.

  However, after enjoying the scenery for a while, I turned away from the outside scenery and focused on the two other passengers in the autonav with me. Minex and Yesemio, who were both sitting together behind me.

  “So, tell me about the city.” Of course I didn’t really need to ask questions about the city, but I had to ask about some things I already knew; after all, I needed to have plausible deniability for knowing all the things that I would learn from the future message.

  Yesemio looked up from her device, “Curious? There are a lot of things I could tell you about it. What do you want to know?”

  “Hmm.” If I was going to ask, then I might as well get some immediately useful information. “Well what’s the best location to shop for a disguise? Something like a mask or a hood. I would feel more comfortable moving around if I had something to cover my face.”

  Yesemio nodded, “Well I wouldn’t know any great places for a magical disguise, but if all you want is just a regular mask then I’d recommend a shop called Clean Getaway. It’s a bit away from the main shopping sections, but it has a good selection of stuff like masks and other things.”

  Minex stroked his chin, “Ah, that shop. It’s owned by a friend of my father’s, and not many people know of it. I think the owner is a little bit paranoid and doesn’t like to advertise its existence.”

  “Hmm, I'll have to check it out then. Hopefully it’s better than what I could find on my own.”

  Minex said, “Ah, yeah, I guess I could loan you some money to buy some things. You’ll be able to pay me back in no time if you work in the Guild.”

  “No, no. I have a private account at the back that I can use to withdraw from.” Genesis would be able to see me withdrawing from the account, but that’s fine.

  “Well, alright then. As long as you can take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll pay you back for everything you’ve done for me once I withdraw some money.”

  “Oh, there’s no need for that. You saved our lives, it’s the least we can do to pay for a few minor things. I only mentioned a loan because I wouldn’t know what you would be purchasing, and my dad always says,” Minex raised his finger and deepened his voice, “Only a fool would spend money on something they don’t understand.”

  “Heh, sounds like an interesting guy.”

  “Yeah, he’s definitely not ordinary, that's for sure.”

  As we drove through the toll gates and into the city we talked about a few more things, but it wasn’t long before we made it to a hotel that Minex had paid for.

  “We’ve already paid for your accommodations here for the next week. Are you sure you don’t want us to book it for longer? It’s really no big deal for us to help with this.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “No, I’ll be fine. Your generosity with helping me get a new identity is more than I could hope for. I don’t want to be any more of a burden than necessary.”

  “Well alright, if that’s what you want. I guess I’ll be expecting you at the Guild in a couple days then.”

  I nodded and waved them off as I went into the hotel and up to my room. There wasn’t anything interesting about this particular hotel, it was just like any other hotel, so I got to my room without interruption.

  As I got into my hotel room, I looked around at the furnishings. It was nothing fancy, and the room I had in prison was actually even bigger than this room. But I would take this smaller room over my prison room every time.

  However I could feel my hands itching to put things into my Inner World as I looked around. I could feel a rising tension that I had learned to associate with my desire to steal things, but the things in this room were hardly worth stealing. So I used [Mental Operator] to forcefully calm my mind and push away those thoughts, but that was more of a band aid fix than an actual solution. It was similar to using a different Power like [Flight] to fly, it would make it possible to fly, sure, but as soon as the Power ran out of energy I would fall right back down to the earth.

  But that wasn’t to say that it was pointless to use [Mental Operator] either. Just like how [Flight] could allow someone to fly up to the top of a building before falling back down, I could use [Mental Operator] to get to a different mental space before stopping.

  To do that I needed to do something to get into another headspace. The problem was that I didn’t have anything to do around here. This room was rather bland, and I didn’t want to go out when it was already so late at night. So the only real option I could come up with was to go to bed.

  But then I remembered what had happened earlier today at the artifact shop. I had messed up and said I had some TechnicMorph ancestry, and that had caused the other guy to have greed in his eyes for some reason. I had resolved myself to go and ask Genesis about it and see if she could shine some light on my failing understanding of the social situation I had found myself in.

  So I lied down on the bed and entered The Archives. As always I arrived in my personal room and donned a new set of attire, but this time I no longer had to hide my face with identity obscuring glasses, since my avatar in The Archives mimicked my real appearance which I had changed with my Talent. So there was no danger of anyone linking Genesis to the escaped convict Radiant.

  I then walked out into the grand hall and habitually looked up to witness the celestial scene above. The view was simple today, with just a swathe of colorful stars shining their light from above.

  I then looked around to see if Genesis would be here, since it was getting late where I was, and I was on the Western side of Tallen which meant it was just as late if not later wherever Genesis was at.

  I didn’t see her around, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t here at all, so I decided to walk around for a bit to not only look for Genesis, but also to get my mind away from my kleptic thoughts.

  As I wandered around my mind also wandered to a topic that I liked to think about to get my mind off of things, that being the differences between this world and Earth.

  My wandering mind landed on my recent thoughts of the time of day. On Earth the time of day was determined by where one was on the planet as it spun around like a top, but that same concept didn’t apply to Epidas.

  One had to wonder how there could be such things like days or even cardinal directions in a place that was flat and seemingly infinite. Well when I first had this question and went looking for the answer, I found out that Epidas didn’t have cardinal directions or even a regular day/night cycle; instead, I found that things like a day/night cycle and the cardinal directions only applied to the various ‘continents’ in Epidas.

  So, on the continent of Waroth, where Tallen was located, North was the center of the mostly circular continent, and south was the outer ring of the continent. The ‘Sun’, or the day/night cycle moved clockwise around the center, and the cycle of the seasons also followed this pattern; though the cycles sort of broke down near the center of the continent.

  These thoughts were a nice distraction as I wandered the grand hall looking for Genesis, and it wasn’t too long before I actually spotted her standing in one of the more natural areas with grass and trees.

  Walking up to Genesis I greeted her with a smile, “Hi Genesis, it’s good to see you again.”

  She looked around, and when she saw me she had a surprised look on her face, “Radiant!”

  She looked like she was going to jump towards me, but held herself back and said, “I’m so glad to see that you’re ok. I wasn’t able to visit The Archives for a while, so I was worried about how you were doing.”

  “Well, I’m doing fine at the moment. Nothing crazy happened on my way out of the anti-magic forest, and I was able to make it out before its effects ramped up. Though I cut it a bit close and barely made it out by the end of The Rising Dawn.”

  She sighed in relief, “That’s good, though maybe next time you shouldn’t go to such a dangerous place to begin with.”

  “Heh, well it’s not usually my choice. Bad luck seems to really like me; though I can’t say I’m pleased with the attention.”

  Genesis smiled and said, “Well hopefully your newfound freedom will let you stay away from danger. But I guess that depends on you now right?”

  I shook my head, “I wish that were the case, but sometimes trouble comes looking for you rather than the other way around.”

  Thanks to my past experiences I knew how true those words were, and the future message was a testament to the danger such trouble could bring. I just hoped that Genesis was right, that my new freedom would let me overcome the looming danger.